A healthy work-life balance, eh...

Hi there everyone.

So, it finally happened. Last week, while working on some stuff for HoneyCome, I suddenly heard a crack sound from my neck, got unable to turn my head right and started getting the sensation of tasting blood. For those uninitiated, this counts as bad news =P

A quick consultation with the Emergency Room, it turns out that it's likely just due to overwork and stress in combination with an unreasonable amount of PC time.

I received a very strong recommendation to minimize PC usage for a few weeks, get friendly with some painkillers, and got a stern talking to, informing me that 17-20h workdays for over a prolonged period of time is not good for me... who knew? -.-

Didn't help that I contacted them at 3AM, further cementing that I should probably not work at that point >.<

Now, how will this affect BR stuffs?

From your point of view, little to no changes probably. I'll be putting some behind the scenes, unannounced, projects on hold, and focus on the ones close to completion. Most of the overwork has also been related to the Illusion HP RIP lately, so that is concluded, more or less. Nothing time critical left at least.

There will be a minor, though neat, update to my download page soon (EDIT: Now live), as that is almost ready for uploading, adding some highly requested features, just need to implement some minor things and that's good to go. Going from there, I will focus primarily on the main packs, making sure they're sufficiently updated, so stay tuned for that.

TLDR: chances are there will be more pack releases, behind the scenes stuff will largely be frozen for this month, but as it's behind the scenes, most of you all won't notice I hope.

If all you want is a BR update, you can cut it here, for the rest of you... keep on going.

So then, on to the Content Creator Trap

Now, I'm talking to those of you aspiring to start your own projects, whatever they may be, and are lucky enough to get a following, or are trying your darndest to do so.

There is a common problem with people in this situation, and ofc, I am no exception. We tend to have this mentality that:

"If I'm having me-time, that's time that could be used on the project, and as such I'm letting my supporters down"

This is a scary path to walk down, and though I routinely fail to do so, I implore you fight this line of thought.

Nothing good awaits, mentally or physically, at the end of this path. And I know, at the logical side my my mind, that is not the case. I highly doubt my followers are offended if I take a few hours a day to actually not work, but that is all too easily forgotten... I know that I would be mortified if a creator I follow thinks he or she owes it to me to work themselves to an early grave, yet I find it extremely hard to offer myself that very same courtesy. A lot is said about the human brain, but holy hell, it sucks. >.<

Hard work is important to succeed at anything, but even a good thing, taken in too high a dose, is toxic for both the mind and the body.

I may decide to go further into talking about the "Content Creator Trap" at a later point if there's interest for it (god knows there's a lot to be said about it, it's a very common problem as it turns out), but for now, while I'm back at it again after a few days out, and still very good friends with my box of painkillers, so I'll leave it a bit short for now.

According to the Emergency Room, this should pass given some time, and when it has, and I return to the now frozen behind the scenes projects, I will need to be mindful of what I'm preaching, but for now it's all kinda "Do as I say, not as I do", innit? =P

Stay tuned for HS2, KKS and RealPlay updates coming, hopefully soon. Last HS2 pack failed testing, so will probably require some work to figure out why, but besides that, things should hopefully move smoothly (famous last words).